BATMAN RETURN OF BRUCE WAYNE #2 (OF 6)
What did the
iFanboy
community think?
Pulls
Art by FRAZER IRVING
Covers by ANDY KUBERT
Variant cover by FRAZER IRVING
Size: 48 pages
Price: 3.99
Batman and Time Travel. If I was eight years old again this would be crack for me. Combining two of my favorite things into a single idea? With the first issue giving us a small glimpse of what Morrison has planned with this mini, I was all on board. Now with the second issue out it should be more of the same? Not exactly.
I’m not gonna beat around the bush here. This was a bad comic. On all levels it was extremely tiring and cringe-worthy to read. It isn’t just because Morrison is confusing the hell out of me. Like the last review for this, I know full well Morrison is going to make this as confusing as he wants to be and I’m all for it. Once this issue ended for me though, I seriously have no idea what Morrison is planning. Not in a good way, a way where it leaves my head scratching and I have no idea what just happened. I re-read this a good amount of times and I still don’t get the end. Not only that, but the story within the story itself, with Bruce as a ‘witch’-hunter was very boring. I just didn’t care about this new love interest and I’m just as lost as Bruce is with his predictament. It has some of the Morrison quirks I can like, even if it was confusing at the end the bits with the ‘Vanishing Point’ was interesting. Still….I have no idea what I just read.
Now I like Frazer Irving as an artist. I first bare witness to his talents in ‘Azrael: Death’s Dark Knight’ (a mini everyone should read) and the art sealed the deal with me and the new Azrael. With this title….My lord there just seems to be something wrong here. Cause the faces and the anatomy is just off putting the whole time. Superman and some of the others look like depressed human beings pretending to be superheroes. Irving’s backgrounds are pretty nice though and his surreal images are neat. It’s also the coloring that seems to be a bit off too. Looks digital and while that might not have bothered me in the Azrael mini, here it looks too obvious. Overall if you want a good looking Irving comic….go try ‘Azrael: Death’s Dark Knight’.
You know me guys. I enjoy Morrison’s writing and I like how he puts bizarre/surreal elements into the Batman mythos. Here though just nothing about this comic worked. It was either TOO confusing for me to figure out or it was just plain boring. It also doesn’t help I need to read a seperate mini involving Booster, Sups, and others that are involved with this story as well. That won’t come out for a few more weeks….Anyways this was just a big misstep from an otherwise good start for Morrison. Let’s hope Pirate-Batman next issue is 100% better.
Art: 2 - Average
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I think the problem with this series is that its too short. Each stop in time could/should be 3-4 issues to really expand on the concept and give Bruce a chance to do something.
This just seems like an episode of Quantum Leap that only lasts for 10 minutes.
How does the overall story flow from issue #1 to this issue?
Hey, I really respect your opinions on things, and if you were "bored" by it all, then that’s how it worked for you.
I wasn’t entralled by the issue at all until like a third of the way through, then things started to click for me and my mind started making connections. Overall I think this was much better than the first issue. There’s a lot of stuff to unpack here. I read the issue like
It’s subversive in that Bruce isn’t really a witch-hunter; he’s just taking the guise of a witch-hunter, and what he’s doing is trying to persuade the townspeople not to be so superstitious. So if you were bored by him being a witch-hunter…he WASN’T really a witch-hunter, there was more to it. In Morrison’s little universe here, magic and devils do exist, but not in the cliche way that the townspeople would understand. (Like Annie says, "My gods are not their gods. Or their Devil."
Bruce says he’s not "inclined to lay blame at the Devil’s door when an earthly explanation is forthcoming." That parallels with how, at the end of RIP, Bruce didn’t want to believe that Dr. Hurt was "the Devil", but suggested that he was Mangrove Pierce. There are so many parallels here. The "Dragon" that is referred to is also the "Dragon" a/k/a Dr. Hurt referred to in Batman #666. Conjured demons also parallel with what Dick may have seen in B&R #12. At least I hope you caught how Bruce was posing for that portrait, with the book, which Dick sees in B&R #10.
If you didn’t like Annie the witch–okay. But there’s more to her. She’s a slight analog of Zatanna (and maybe Catwoman, in Gaiman’s WHttCC? interpretation). Bruce finally has a good time with her. But at the end she curses the Wayne family "until the end of time" (a phrase she says repeatedly, and it’s the title of the issue). That’s important because evidently Bruce had to go to the end of time (see the scenes with Superman & co., with the futuristic robot Bruce archivist) to break her curse, and also to escape Darkseid’s trap.
In the first scene Annie tells Bruce that "a great dark god has set his hand on you". She has her own occult religion, but her words refer to Darkseid’s plot to use Bruce as some sort of timebomb once he reaches the present. The JLA know this too, and are trying to stop it. Eventually, though, it looks like Bruce has already figured a way out of this trap, by going "to the end of time" and performing something on the timeline. So by this issue, we actually have proof that Bruce will win (duh). Bruce has already beaten Darkseid. Unfortunately, it will take four more issues for the JLA (and most readers, no offense) to catch up. So in the next few issues the JLA are going to try to nab Bruce out of the timestream—even though doing THAT would screw up Bruce’s own plans of beating Darkseid. So there’s a Batman vs. the JLA angle going on as well (how can this be boring once you grasp that?).
"It also doesn’t help I need to read a seperate mini"
You don’t need to read that, unless you really want to read about four cluntzes who THINK they know what’s going on, blundering around time, spelling everything out. If you just really read what Morrison’s conveying, you’d see that Bruce Wayne has already figured everything out, already beat Darkseid, and the evidence of that is in this issue. The JLA’s plan isn’t going to work (though they might help Bruce somehow); Bruce’s is.
"I’m just as lost as Bruce is with his predictament."
Heh. He’s not really that lost, though. He’s already written a book and sent it into the future (the book in the painting). He’ll find that soon, read up on everything from the previous life, and know even more for the next time.
Again, no offense or anything. But I hope some of this struck your fancy. Of course, you can know all that I explained here and still dislike it.
@Jesse1125: In terms of Bruce going through time, it did flow okay. I think a big chunk of time went past from when Bruce lands in Puritan times and then being a witch hunter. The stuff with Sups and Booster though seems to be a bit of a leap. Looking at the solicts for their mini I can see why.
@froggulper: Thanks for a nice read. No, seriously I see what all of your saying here. I did see parallels to the present day Batman and in this. But even so, the story just didn’t seem to flow with me and it got really confusing sometimes.
Frogqulper: thanx for bringin that to the light for me. I really needed a few things cleared up for me. Usually happens in Morrison’s stuff.
I totally agree that this issue was deliberately over-confusing & kinda dull. What I’m surprised at is that YOU are saying negative things about Morrison. You usually enjoy his stuff even when you admit you don’t get it. Won’t they take away your "G-Mo Is God" membership card?
Seriously though, the whole concept of Batman trapped in time is garbage to begin with (well, it’s outdated anyway, just like the old TV show is) & the way it’s been written so far hasn’t helped it. Issue one, we get ZERO input from Bruce, about what he’s thinking or feeling & now this issue is just like you said: confusing & dull.